For the first part of our vacation we drove our camper to Spokane to visit Grandma, who is 95 and doing rather well. We coordinated the timing of the visit with Mom, who flew in from Texas for a long weekend. It was quite hot, which is not unusual in July, but we stayed in our camper anyway. It was always stuffy at first but eventually cool air made its way in.
For the second part we went to Priest Lake, Idaho to mountain bike. This was a warm up ride for our eventual destination, which was Rossland, B.C. where we would ride the epic 7 Summits Trail. This set of pictures is from Priest Lake. We had hoped to camp at the more southern end of the lake so that we could ride the entire trail from south to north. However, that campground was full so we ended up camping in the middle campground (Beaver Creek, I think).
On our second full day we rode the Priest Lake Upper Navigation Trail, which is a lovely groomed trail. The further north we went the more remote the trail became. There certainly weren't any hikers up that far and we didn't see any other mountain bikers while we were on the trail. We had stopped at one of the lakeside campgrounds for a looksee then continued on. I was lollygagging, taking pictures, piddling in the woods, and so on. I found myself rather alone. Except for a moose cow.
A moose in the wild looks like a cross between a grizzly and an elk. I didn't know what to expect. She didn't seem in much of a hurry to get away from me and seemed more curious about me than I would've liked. I made sure that my bike and a few stout trees were between me and her while I snapped a few hurried pictures. I whistled for Randy, then decided I didn't want him to come down, although I don't exactly remember my reasoning now. I sauntered along the trail until I was sure she wasn't following, chasing, or otherwise in sight any more. Then I whistled for Randy in earnest until I heard him whistle back. After that we rode more closely together for the remaining 20 miles of trail.
We saw signs of bears and posted signs warning us of bears but we never saw the actual animal. We saw a family of hikers carrying bear spray. Understandable since half the family were two young girls.
At the end of the day, we had ridden around 30 miles. The trail was for the most part nicely groomed and mostly level. We were still plenty tired but had enough energy to fix a nice dinner on our portable Weber gas grill. Seems to me we ate rather well on that trip — grilled meats and vegetables. And refreshing adult beverages, of course.